Hessian Powder Magazine

The Hessian Powder Magazine is one of the oldest surviving structures on the Carlisle Barracks campus — a squat stone building dating to the 1770s that served both as a guardhouse for Hessian prisoners of war and as a storage magazine for gunpowder. It is the oldest military building in the United States that is still standing.

The building is now a small museum with exhibits on the Revolutionary War connection and the broader history of the barracks. It is modest in scale but the building itself — solid fieldstone, low ceilinged, worn smooth — carries real atmosphere. Access is through the main gate at the Barracks; you will need to show ID.

things to do sight museum
A story
The building held Hessian soldiers captured during the Revolutionary War — German mercenaries hired by the British who surrendered to American forces at the battles of Trenton and Princeton. Some of those prisoners later chose to stay in Pennsylvania rather than return to Germany, and their descendants are part of the local fabric today.

Other places in Things to Do